CHAPTER 681: STORM IN THE FLESH. [GT CHAPTER]

Without pausing for breath, Izan rotated his hips and swept the outside of his right foot against the ball.

It curved.

Hard.

A trivela, pure and perfect, like an artist curling paint into an empty canvas.

The ball spun violently in mid-air, curling outward and wide toward Arsenal’s right flank.

"What a ball! Outside of the boot! That’s outrageous!"Jim Beglin shouted now, almost startled,

The crowd gasped in tandem as Martinelli, who had just crossed the halfway line, saw it coming—spinning toward him like a divine message written in flight.

He opened his stride, legs pumping, and stretched his right foot outwards—

The ball dropped.

And Martinelli reached for the touch.

His boot kissed the ball on the full stretch—just enough to bring it under control, his first touch cushioning it against the weight of that glorious trivela like a gymnast catching mid-air momentum in a single perfect landing.

The Arsenal end of the crowd roared in delight, drums rattling somewhere deep in the red quadrant, as the Arsenal fans sensed something brewing.

There was energy in the air now—electric and trembling.

"Martinelli brings it down! Wonderful control from the Brazilian!" Alan Smith’s voice trembled with rising urgency."He has time—but not for long..."

Because like a rumble through the ground, Ibrahima Konaté arrived.

Like a freight train wearing boots.

A blur of power and muscle surged in from the right, and Martinelli had no illusions about the mismatch.

Konaté wasn’t coming to poke the ball away—he was coming to take the whole man if necessary.

Martinelli didn’t even try to challenge him head-on.

He knew better.

Instead, he used the defender’s weight against him and, with a soft touch and a slick slip, he rolled the ball with the outside of his foot, curling it behind him down the line—a clever, instinctive release more in hope than precision.

Just out of Konaté’s reach.

"Clever from Martinelli!"Beglin shouted. "He’s released it, but who’s there?! Anyone in red! Anyone?!"

Konaté’s momentum carried him past Martinelli, shoulders square and eyes locked on what he thought was a loose ball.

He was already adjusting his hips to lunge forward when—

Martin Ødegaard appeared.

From nothing.

From nowhere.

His face was pale and sweat-slicked.

His shorts clung to tired legs, his gait uneven.

The bandage around his right knee had darkened with dirt.

He looked like a man who had already run through fire for eighty-five minutes and was still being asked to walk across coals.

But the captain came anyway.

With delicate timing and dying breath, Ødegaard reached the ball just before Konaté could, taking a soft touch to shift it around the hulking centre-back with his left foot.

Konaté tried to turn.

Too slow.

Too late.

And in doing so, he collided with Ødegaard mid-run—shoulder into ribs.

The Norwegian stumbled but stayed upright as the referee gestured both hands forward.

"Advantage! Advantage Arsenal!" shouted the assistant from the sideline, voice cracking under the Wembley floodlights.

The Gunners had no time to dwell.

The ball spilt toward the right again, back to Martinelli, who, somehow, already recovering from the earlier brush with Konaté, turned infield.

Odegaard was gone, holding his ribs.

But Martinelli didn’t hesitate.

He saw the pass and slipped the ball to Havertz, who was in front.

He saw the ball coming from behind, but he also saw Gravenberch prancing towards him like a horse, so he made a subtle leap over the ball.

The ball rolled under his legs, unbothered, as if it had always been meant for the man behind.

Izan took the ball in stride, body leaning forward like he was about to pass the ball, but he slipped the ball back, just past the outstretched leg of Mac Allister, who had been creeping from behind.

Izan didn’t even look at the Argentine—his body had already turned, eyes now lifting forward toward the teeth of the battlefield.

Six.

Six Liverpool players stood between him and the goal.

It was a shifting wall.

A compression trap.

They were already moving—like wolves circling a deer that had wandered too far into the wild.

Trent.

Virgil.

Konate.

Mac Allister again.

Robertson sweeping left, and then Gravenberch guarding the middle like a stone-faced monk.

A triangle... and behind it, another triangle... folding in.

A last attempt at Arne Slot’s Treadmill in hopes of keeping the score level, at least till the stoppage time minutes passed.

Izan scanned it all in a half-second.

The formation, the traps, the shadows lurking in the passing lanes.

He let out a small, tired sigh.

Then he tilted his head, just slightly—like a pianist cracking his knuckles before a solo.

"Fuck it," he muttered under his breath.

"We ball."

Ding.(It’s been a while)

[Speedster LV 3 Activated]

[Close Control LV 3 Activated]

[Trickster LV 4 Activated]

[System detects three traits in use. System not suppo-]

{UNION LV 2 overrides.}

For a second, Izan wasn’t moving, at least, that was what the fans and the Liverpool players saw, and then, like a system booting up, life returned to Izan’s eyes.

And then he moved.

Like a system booting up.

Like a divine key turning in the core of his spine.

Like football itself decided to live inside him, and he exploded.

A bolt—raw and unfiltered, like light without warning.

His studs peeled off the grass, his shoulders narrowed, as he sliced through the first line of Liverpool red with a speed so blinding even the match clock struggled to keep up.

Gravenberch stepped first, quick-footed, square-bodied, arms ready for the bump.

Mac Allister slid diagonally to cover the inside lane, shoulders hunched, the pair looking like a two-door security lock set to snap shut.

But Izan?

He wasn’t interested in keys.

He dragged the ball with the outside of his right foot, faking to surge through Gravenberch’s lane—and the Dutchman bought it.

One foot extended, too eager and too late.

Megh’d. Cold, precise, and merciless.

Gravenberch spun, tried to track back—but he wasn’t even in the same timezone anymore.

Before the crowd could even register the cruelty, Izan had nudged the ball again, this time forcing it through the legs of Mac Allister—two nutmegs in under three seconds—and by the time Mac tried to reset his footing, Izan was already turning his hips, dragging the ball behind him as if it were tethered to his soul.

He lost his balance—nearly.

His knee dipped dangerously, and the grass gritted under his left foot.

But somehow—someway, he didn’t fall.

No one breathed.

Not even the players.

Wembley forgot it was a stadium.

It became a theatre.

A Canvas that was showing one painting, but the two sides viewed it differently.

To Arsenal fans, it was mythical.

To the Liverpool fans, it was grotesque.

Trossard appeared like a ghost as the ball arrived at his feet as if summoned.

But even he knew—this wasn’t his to claim.

He was just the echo.

Just the harmony to something greater.

So he held the ball, barely a breath, just long enough for Izan to push up from the ground again, still gasping from the chaos behind him.

A tap.

Return pass.

And then—

[WARNING: NEXUS FLOW OVERUSE DETECTED.]

[Body limit threshold approaching – 82% strain]

[System error imminent—shut down advised—]

But what came was,{OVERRIDE AND CONTINUE.}

Izan didn’t flinch.

His mind was quiet, but his body was screaming—alerts flashing like emergency lights in every joint, his lungs cracking under the heat of that inhuman burst, his thighs twitching under overclocked commands.

He didn’t care.

He couldn’t care.

His mind was on something else. Something coming.

And he wanted that thing to come.

He felt the air shift.

The tremor in the turf as the Dutch sentinel arrived.

Van Dijk—one of the greatest defenders of the era—charged at him with a stride full of history.

Izan turned with the ball, faked left with a stuttered shoulder dip that would fool a mirror, then stopped entirely as if frozen by his own trick.

Van Dijk bit and Izan twisted again, violently, hips snapping, muscle searing.

His right foot pushed off.

His system screeched.

[WARNING: INTERNAL LOAD CRITICAL.]

But he was gone again, with Van Dijk left reaching for a ghost.

Izan stuck out a hand behind him as if to keep the Devil himself from touching his cloak.

He wasn’t looking.

He didn’t need to.

His body was burning, but his mind was cold.

And then—

He let the ball fly.

Released.

It was no longer an object—it was a manifestation. Of rebellion. Of ascension.

The ball moved like he hadplanted his soul into it.

Not spun—moved—like it had heard the noise of Wembley and decided to mute it.

It curved, fast and slow at once, a ghosting swerve that tore through disbelief and bent past Alisson’s leap.

The Liverpool keeper dove, stretched to full extension, gloved fingers straining— trying to be the saviour, but there could only be one such entity on the pitch, and tonight, like it always was, it was Izan.

The ball kissed past his reach like a secret, then thumped the back of the net like a punchline to the greatest solo ever performed.

GOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAA LLLLLLLLL, cried the Arsenal fans like they were helping an entity ascend.

3–2. Arsenal.

93rd minute.

Wembley is in chaos.

The Arsenal fans lost their minds.

Not celebrated—screamed.

Chairs kicked over, pints flying into the air like geysers, people grabbing strangers and howling into the wind.

Some jumped the rails.

Three, maybe four, dashed past the stewards, running onto the pitch with pure adrenaline in their eyes—no thought, no fear, just glory.

One of them fell trying to hug Izan but missed while another chased the shirt as Izan hurled it into the crowd with a spin and a snarl.

Like he had just slain something divine.

And the commentary—

It prayed.

"And now... he runs!"

"From the embers of chaos, from the weight of history, he runs!"

"Six red shirts — defiant, desperate — form a barricade! But this is no boy... this is a storm wearing flesh!"

"He weaves! He dances! He dares!"

"He’s not just playing football — he’s rewriting its rules!"

"Wembley trembles! The grass is hallowed, and it yields to him!"

"It’s as if they whispered from Olympus and said, ’Go.’"

"And he did! And he is!"

"This is not a match. This is a coronation! A child of man, now cloaked in the fury of gods! Izan Miura Hernández... Just... what are you?"

And he was what he was.

For now, he was the godchild of Football.